


green and white and the sun’s so bright

by atlas_oulast



Series: yearbook, cigarettes, and blood that we’ve shed [2]
Category: Heathers (1988)
Genre: Drugs, Forced institutionalisation, Gen, Gunshot Wounds, Implied/Referenced Sex, Insanity, Kidnapping, Mental Institutions, Mild Gore, Murder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-26
Updated: 2019-11-26
Packaged: 2021-02-25 20:48:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21561709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atlas_oulast/pseuds/atlas_oulast
Summary: Nobody ever thought that something like this would happen to them, until it’d already happened and their world was forever changed.~~Heather Duke was the sole witness of a heinous crime, set up to be her own end. She’s sent to a mental hospital to live out the rest of her days to make sure that she never reveals what is true, and doubts her own truth.
Relationships: Jason “J.D.” Dean/Heather Duke (past)
Series: yearbook, cigarettes, and blood that we’ve shed [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1375885
Comments: 2
Kudos: 19





	green and white and the sun’s so bright

**Author's Note:**

> honestly i never actually thought id get around to this but here we are!!! give your regards to nanowrimo cause otherwise this never would’ve happened.
> 
> mind the tags, those are your tws. if any of these is too much for you then this is not the fic for you, there’s a lot of what’s tagged.

It was one AM, and Heather Duke was minding her own damn business when the phone rang.

Her parents weren’t home, so it was probably for her. Probably just Heather or Heather wanting to talk.

If Heather could go back to that moment, when the phone rang, she would tell herself not to accept the call. To tape down the phone, lock all the doors and windows, and not leave the house for the next three weeks.

But stupid, stupid Heather Duke picked up the phone.

“Hello?” She said quietly.

“Heather, goddamn, am I glad to hear you,” JD said from the other end of the line. “Meet me at the boat launch at Lachrymose Lake in twenty minutes.”

“Wha... JD, isn’t there a mandatory curfew?”

“It’s not like the police are out making sure that nobody goes anywhere. I’ve been out since seven and nobody’s stopped me. Heather, this is important. Please, be quick.”

“I... you know what? Fine.” And if Heather could go back, she’d go back and make herself hang up the phone right then and there.

But she couldn’t. And she didn’t.

“Good. Twenty minutes, Heather, please hurry.”

Against her better judgment, Heather had put a raincoat on over her pajamas, some galoshes, and gotten on her bike and ridden through the rain to the boat launch on Lachrymose Lake.

JD was there, fucking smoking a cigarette, she could see the blue smoke floating through the light of the lone streetlight down here.

He grinned when he saw Heather, and the second she dismounted from her bike, he grabbed her hand and began running towards the creek.

“JD, what are you-“

And then she stopped.

And Heather looked down.

A girl about her age, blood all over, hair matted, brown eyes open but seeing nothing.

Heather screamed half a scream, but JD slapped a hand over her mouth before she could finish.

“The murderer might still be here, don’t alert him that we’re here.”

Heather pried his hand off her mouth. “Did you know that there’d be a body here? Oh my god, we have to get the police!”

“Nobody’s going anywhere, Heather,” JD said, in a tone that sent shivers down her spine.

Heather turned around to look at him.

“JD... what do you-“

And then there was a bang and a scream and a burning pain in her gut, and she collapsed to the ground, and watched JD roll the body into the creek.

And then he squatted down to her level, and the last thing she remembered was him grazing her cheek and opening his mouth to say one last thing.

“For the record, Heather... I was the one who killed Betty and Martha.”

And then everything went dark.

* * *

Heather awoke in a room of all white. The walls were white, she was clothed in white, and there were white bandages on her abdomen when she peered down a hospital gown.

Oh god, she was in the hospital. And JD had shot her! And JD had killed a girl! And JD was the one who’d killed Betty and Martha!

A nurse came in just then, clothed in light blue scrubs. She had pasty white skin, soft brown eyes, and soft blonde hair pulled back in a low ponytail.

“Good morning, dearie,” she said, in a soft, gentle voice. “How are you feeling?”

“JD killed Betty and Martha.”

“Oh, goodness, no wonder you’re here, darling.”

“JD killed Betty and Martha and another girl last night and you gotta arrest him!” Heather nearly screamed.

“Please lower your volume, Missus Heather, you’ll disturb the others. And you were asleep last night, during the transfer... only fuelling the reason why you were sent here.”

“What? What transfer?”

“From the hospital in Cincinnati to here, Hazel Green Home for Those Unwell Upstairs.”

“What is this, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children?”

“No, it’s the Hazel Green Home for Those Unwell Upstairs. I have never heard of a Miss Peregrine, dearie, you’re clearly insane.”

“I am not! Listen, Jason Dean killed Martha and Betty and some other girl in Sherwood and you have to get him!”

“Dearie, please quiet down. Don’t worry, we’ll give you pills to quell the hallucinations, and you’ll be fine.”

“I’m not hallucinating. Don’t you believe me?”

“I don’t. You are a little girl who was stabbed in the abdomen, found to be needing mental assistance, and transferred here, to the Hazel Green Home for Those Unwell Upstairs.”

“I get it, I get it, you’ve said it three times in the past two minutes. But first off, I was shot, not stabbed, and second, you have to get Jason Dean, I’m serious. You have to.”

“I mean, my dear Jason would never shoot anyone, because he’s such a dear. So clearly, you really are hallucinating. I think it’s time for your pills, Heather.”

“Your dear Jason?”

“Why, yes.” The woman smiled, flashing perfect pearly whites. “I am Annabelle Dean, Bud Dean is my husband and Jason Dean is my dear, lovely son. Now, about your pills, now.”

“You’re his mom?! I thought you were dead!”

“My son is a storyteller, young one, and he has spun many a tale about me. No, I just live here, at Hazel Green, and he doesn’t see me often. It’s a shame, too. I always ask him to come for thanksgiving or Christmas or New Year’s and he never does. Oh well. Open up, sweetie.”

Before Heather could blink, a pill had been flung into her mouth and her mouth covered by Annabelle’s uncannily soft hand.

“Swallow, dearie.”

Heather had no choice but to obey.

And the world turned fuzzy and purple and then she was dragged under.

* * *

For the first few weeks, all Heather knew were drugs and drugs and drugs. Black, speckled pills, purple ones, clear amber ones, pills in every shape and size imaginable and every colour on the spectrum and then some. It was odd and it was oddly soothing, and all she remembered, looking back, were the shapes and sizes and colours of the pills and how she never got the same one twice, and endless hazes. It might not have been the first few weeks, maybe the first few months, maybe the first few years.

Finally, the staff at the Hazel Green Home for Those Unwell Upstairs settled on a regimen for her. Every morning, a paper cup of water, and then a long, skinny, blue, minty pill, a short, round white one, a speckled pink and purple one that was shaped like a star, and a small, square red pill. Then, she could get up and do whatever she wanted until Healing Time, when she would sit in a circle with other girls and they would talk nonsense for hours and hours on end, their words mangled by the effects of the drugs they were on.

Then was lunchtime, where she got a salad, half a green apple, and a box of apple juice. Then was nap time, and she got a clear, green, circular pill and she slept for three hours. Then when she woke up, she had dinner, which was beans and rice and macaroni and cheese, and then her nighttime pills: a long skinny orange one, two purple circles, and a clear blue one. And then she would sleep until morning and they’d do it all over again.

For perhaps longer than she’d been in a haze of drugs in the beginning, she was in a haze of drugs and monotony. She robotically carried out her routine, she ate what she was told, drank what she was told, took what pills she was told, went to sleep when she was told. She didn’t protest, didn’t speak at all, really, didn’t make friends with anyone, didn’t do anything but robotically perform, because that’s what she was supposed to do.

Perform these tasks, she was rewarded with a lack of punishment. And in her drug addled brain and her drugged up haze, that was plenty good enough for her. She forgot her name, he forgot JD’s name, forgot Betty and Martha and the girl at the creek and Heather be Heather and the teachers and the principal and Annabelle and everyone she’d ever known and anyone she’d never know. She just simply performed her tasks and slept and that was just plenty good enough for Robot Heather Duke indeed.

Robot Heather Duke didn’t have feelings. Robot Heather Duke didn’t need to speak or make friends in this place.

But eventually, Robot Heather was pried away by the tiny bit of Sane Heather lurking under the surface. She pulled off Robot Heather a best she could and tried to be a little bit human.

She started by talking to her nurses who gave her pills and water and food. Chasity was the one who’s brought her morning pills and water, Beth brought her breakfast Andy lunch, but not dinner, Andy brought her dinner. And Sarah took her to healing Time, and Mindy gave her the green pill for nap time. Chasity, Sarah, and Mindy all had blonde hair, Beth had curling red hair, and Andy had short brown hair. Chasity brought her her morning pills and water, Beth brought her breakfast, Sarah took her to Healing Time, and then Beth took her to lunch, and then Mindy gave her the green pill. Mindy was there when she woke up and toolbar her to dinner, and Andy served the dinner. And then Mindy toolbar her back to her room and Chasity brought her her evening pills and then she went to sleep.

Giving the faces names and remembering them brought humanity into her schedule. She wasnt robot Heather who simply preformed without asking questions and only gave the faces the glory of being blues, distant memories the second she wasn’t looking at them. Chasity brought her her morning pills, and Heather said hi, and chasity nodded, and she took her pills obediently, and as a reward, Beth brought her breakfast. When it was time for sarah to take her to Healing Time, she asked if Sarah had any children. 

Sarah did not have any children, but one day she wanted a boy and a girl and that was it. And she didn’t have a husband, but she had a boyfriend named John and he had coke bottle glasses and a ponytail and lots of tattoos, and Sarah loved him but didn’t think did ever commit. Heather said that if he wouldn’t commit then she should leave his sorry ass behind, and Sarah laughed.

At Healing Time, Heather found out that the girl she was sitting next to was named McKenna. McKenna liked horses and her little sister April, and all McKenna liked talking about were horses. But she was nice, she had caramel hair and blue eyes and blue eyeshadowthat sparkled, and when Heather asked where she got it, she said a nurse named Sabrina.

Heather didn’t know an nurse named Sabrina. 

When Sarah took her back to her room for nap time, Heather asked if there was a nurse named Sabrina who had makeup. Sarah said that sabrina as her twin sister and sabrina worked in the Halfway Wing. When Heather asked what the Halfway Wing was, Sarah said that it was for really well behaved patients. But no, Heather wasn’t well behaved enough, but that was a good thing, said Sarah, because that meant that they’d spend more time together. Heather didn’t understand and stopped talking to her for the rest of the walk, and Mindy brought her her green pill.

Today, Heather decided to see how long she could stay awake against the pill. The clock in her room said three o clock , and the last time Heather looked at it before falling asleep was when it said three oh five o clock. The pill was strong, like a big warm hand pressing on her head and telling her that she had to go to sleep and be a good girl. The hand was warm and soft and good and nice and it felt good to let it have control. She washed away like a seashell on a beach and the waves were warm and held her until it was six oh seven and now Sarah has to take Heather one dinner.

Dinner was black beans and white rice and yellow macaroni and cheese and it was soft and easy to chew. The girl next to her was named Rebecca and she put her beans in her hair and babbled and a nurse named Charlie picked Rebecca up and took her away. That was okay, Heather didn’t really like Rebecca. OR maybe her name was Reina? Heather didn’t remember. Was her name Holly?

Sarah brought her back to her room and Chasity brought her evening pills. It was seven fifty five when she went to bed and when she went to sleep for the night they turned e lights off and she couldn’t a we the clock. The lights stayed on during nap time but not during bed time, and Heather didn’t know why. But she didn’t know what time it was when she fell asleep.

The next day, Heather sat next to a girl named Abby in Healing Time. She was young and smart and pretty, short, with curly red hair, with thin white scars all over her face. She couldn’t be older than fourteen years old.

When Heather asked Abby how old she was, though, she said she was eleven.

“My parents sent me here because I walked through the mirror to the castle,” Abby said quietly, rocking back and forth as she spoke.

“It must’ve been a very pretty castle,” Heather said appreciatively. Abby was brave to walk through a mirror.

“It was... but when I walked through the mirror it was just black, and then I was here, in my room, in my bed. My pills nurse is named Nancy and she said that my parents sent me here and they didn’t want to see me. Probably they were just scared of the scars. But they’re healed now!” Abby exclaimed brightly.

Abby was like sunshine in a small, short, skinny body, and it was the first time since she’d gotten here that an interaction had felt real. Even when she took away Robot Heather’s powers and control, all the conversations blurred together and it felt like she was dreaming. But she felt alive, talking to Abby.

“I came here because my ex boyfriend JD killed three people and then shot me but nobody believed me... I hope he didn’t kill anybody else.” That was the first time in a very long time that Heather had remembered that. JD, in the dark and rain with the blue smoke from his cigarette... and he killed the girl by the creek. It was scary and she hoped that he was in jail and that he hadn’t killed any other girls and out them in the creek.

“Did he get arrested?” Abby asked.

“I don’t know. I hope he did. He deserves to be in jail for a long time. He killed three people and mayhe more and he almost killed me and made his mom take me into her weird nuthouse and everyone’s thinks I’m crazy when I say that JD killed people.”

“That sucks. Nobody believed me when I said there was a castle in the mirror, they told me I was just hallucinating.”

“They told me the same thing when I said that JD murdered people. But he did! He really did!”

“I believe you, Heather.”

When Heather went to take her green pill for nap time, she told Mindy she was happy.

“Why?” Mindy asked.

“Because everything feels real again and a girl named Abby told me that she believed me.”

Mindy clicked her tongue and handed Heather the green pill and a paper cup full of water.

Heather took it obediently and went to sleep. She dreamed about castles and JD in a dungeon and being with the other Heathers again.

When she woke up, she realised that she remembered now! Heather McNamara and Heather Chandler were her best Riends, and they were the most popular girls in school, and everyone called them te heathers. She liked it when other people liked and respected her. Sometimes Heather Chandler was mean and rude and told her to shut up or to stop copying her, and most of the time Heather McNamara went along with her. But she liked them, they were her friends, and they did each othwr’s hair and nails and read magazines and talked on the phone and went to the mall and played on Heather McNamara’s beother’s Sega.

She asked Sarah if they had Sega here, or if her friends would go come.

Sarah said no to both of those things. Sega was only for people in the Halfway Wing and friends weren’t for anyone in the Hazel Green Home for Those Unwell Upstairs. And Sarah wouldn’t tell her why it was called the Hazel Green Home for Those Unwell upstairs.

She sat next to Abby during dinner, and the first thing she asked Abby was, “Why do they’d call it the Hazel Green Home for Those Unwell Upstairs?”

“My Healing Time nurse Rebecca says that’s it means that those who are Unwell Upstairs are stupid and insane and crazy.”

“But I’m not stupid or crazy or insane... why does everyone rev think I’m insane?”

Abby shrugged. “This place is really weird. I want to go home.”

“Yeah, me too. My friends are named Heather Chandler and Heather McNamara, I remembered them today. We did all the friend stuff together until I came here and I miss them, a lot.”

“I have a friend named Becky. Becky was always bald but she was pretty and everyone said that she hadn’t cancer in her lungs and then she stopped coming to school when I was eight, and nobody ever wanted to talk about her. They said that she died but when I looked at the castle through the mirror she was waving from the tallest tower and she had long pink hair, so that’s why I walked through the mirror.”

“Did you have any other friends besides Becky?”

“Yeah, Annie. Annie is my cousin, she’s my mom’s brother’s daughter. My mom is named Cheryl and my uncle is named Daryl and he marriedLisa and they had Annie, and Annie’s three years older than me. And my Aunt is named Meryl, so it’s Cheryl and Meryl and Daryl and they all say that my grandma and grandpa we’re nutjobs.”

“What does Annie look like?”

“She has dark skin and black hair and she has seventeen braids. I counted them. She has big brown eves and a big smile and she did all my barbie’s hair with seventeen braids too.”

________

One day, during Healing Time, Blue, a tall girl with green tips on her blonde hair, threw herself at a nurse named Yolanda. Yolanda screamed and tried to fight Blue off, and Blue bit her.

Sarah and another nurse named Mary wrestled Blue away, and that’s when Heather decided that she was in love with Blue.

Maybe it was her body searching for something new and weird here, to break up the monotony, but Heather wanted Blue.

She wanted Blue’s big green eyes, her porcelain skin, her curves, her boobs. But more than anything, Heather wanted Blue’s bravery. Blue didn’t do as she was told, Blue bit and clawed and fought as hard as she could.

And it was either luck or fate that led Heather to sharing a room with Blue. Because Blue had attacked Yolanda, she wasn’t allowed to be in her own room anymore. And Heather was well behaved and quiet, so she got to share a room with Blue.

The first thing Blue said, rather, asked, the first time she saw her new roommate was “Woah, you’re hot.”

Heather laughed nervously, her face turning pink. “Thank you,” she stammered.

Blue was cunning, Blue was beautiful, Blue was everything Heather wished she could be.

Blue sat next to Heather during dinner and Healing Time, and Blue talked to her.

Blue was twenty two, she was pretty sure. She’d been here for five years, she had rebelled against her parents and was condemned for it, and they decided she was insane when she really wasn’t. Heather knew she wasn’t insane, just like her.

During nap time, Heather was transfixed by Blue when she slept. Her soft, gentle breathing, her eyes fluttering with unspoken dreams. She fought the green pill as long as she could, just to watch her sleep.

She was in love.

And somehow, one thing led to another, and then Heather was underneath Blue, squirming under her electric touch. They both wanted relief, and Blue had whispered between kisses that the nurses didn’t patrol between two and five AM, because everyone was usually asleep. So Heather muffled herself with a pillow as she cried under Blue’s touch, the touch she desperately needed. Blue just smiled in the almost total darkness and then dived back in, making Heather nearly scream.

She’d never felt that good in her life, and yet it was over so fast.

“Need... need... Heather gasped absently, muffled under the pillow. It felt so good that she could barely think. She *needed* Blue’s bony body, pressing and pushing and hot against her.

Finally, both reached a stopping point, and a panting kiss was shared before Blue put her gown back on, and slipped out of Heather’s bed to occupy her own, leaving her cold and still needing. Heather fucking loved her, and Heather needed her, so bad.

Three more nights in succession, had Heather clasping at sheets and gasping against a pillow, and after the fourth time, Blue didn’t immediately abandon her.

“Heather, listen to me. Tomorrow, the staff are going to move me to the East Wing. I’ll never see you again,” Blue whispered urgently.

“Blue, what’re you talking about?” Heather responded, confused and cold even with Blue’s perfect body still pressing into her.

“The East Wing is where they take the bad ones. They’re gonna give me so many pills and I won’t be able to think, and the pills will slowly kill me. And they’ll tell my parents I jumped off the roof.”

“I have to stop them.”

“You can’t.”

And the next morning, Blue was gone, and Heather was returned to her previous room. Alone and cold.

Heather couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe anymore. Because Blue had meant more to her than anything had in years. Because Blue had given her something not even Abby could give her.

Hope.

Hope that one day, she’d get away and she and Blue could get married and she could spit in her parent’s faces.

It was fleeting, a fleeting moment that came out of nowhere and left as soon as it came. She needed it back, needed it to last so much longer than it had.

Why couldn’t good things ever last? What had Heather Duke done to deserve all this?

Robot Heather regained control. Being Robot Heather was easier, it hurt less than imagining Blue being forced pill after pill until she went limp and cold and was buried in an unmarked grave, alone in the cold, cold ground.

Robot Heather gave Real heather a break, to step back and rest, because she couldn’t handle it.

Blue had lasted such a short time and it had been beautiful but over so, so fast. Blue came out of nowhere and then Blue left her. How could she do that to her? How dare she?

Robot Heather took the reigns while Real Heather contemplated rebellion. To punish them all for taking her away. To make *them* take the pills, to stop being obedient and quiet and perfect for something that wasn’t her fault, for something that was a lie, a huge lie. Real Heather remembered why she was here, the night in the cold and rain, the blue smoke, the dead cold bloody horrific gory body, her breath and heartbeat speeding up, her piercing scream that was heard only by her attacker as burning, blinding pain exploded on her abdomen. Real Heather remembered the bandages, stupid, horrible Annabelle, the horrible smirking evil smile that her son had inherited. She couldn’t fucking breathe.

Real Heather remembered now, girls she saw at dinner and Healing Time, girls she remembered but never knew the names of, girls who suddenly weren’t at dinner or Healing Time anymore, girls who she never saw again. She knew now where they’d gone and she wasn’t furious, she was furious at herself for not noticing, never noticing, never knowing the truth.

While Real Heather raged inside herself, raged and burned and plotted and screamed soundlessly, Robot Heather took the wheel. Real Heather hated pills and wanted to force feed them all to Annabelle’s stupid face. Robot Heather took them obediently, Robot Heather never put up a fight.

Robot Heather crafted generic conversations with Abby, and Abby suspected nothing. Real Heather inside herself screamed at Abby to run, to run before it was too late for her. Abby had to get away before they took her and everyone she loved to the East Wing to die.

Robot Heather didn’t want justice. Robot Heather forgot about Blue. She forgot her name, her appearance, the breathy sounds she used to make when she was with Heather. Because forgetting was easier than grieving and grieving would awaken Real Heather and allow Real Heather to take control. Real Heather, if she could, would cry and scream and burn this stupid, stupid place right to the ground.

She would step on each and every false smile every nurse wore, and she would end all of this, and at the end she would kill JD and then herself so that he could be with Blue forever. In heaven they could marry and have sex and do each other’s nails and hair and giggle and gossip and go to malls.

Robot Heather wouldn’t let Real Heather free because Real Heather was a dyke, a fucking dyke. Real Heather thought boys were gross and girls were the better half of the human race, Real Heather wanted justice for her love. Real Heather wanted *freedom.* Sweet, dreamy, unobtainable freedom. Freedom was a candy on her tongue, it was the sun in her eyes and the wind in her hair. Her skinny, pale body hadn’t seen the sun in years, and it showed. Her body hadn’t run through the woods, or even a small plot of grass. HEr body didn’t know how to *breathe*.

Freedom was unobtainable for her weak, skinny limbs. And freedom was unobtainable even in her own mind and body. Real Heather was repressed to her own little jail cell in the furthest corner of Heather’s brain, where she couldn’t get out until she was calm and ready to be obident and behave herself. Until she forgot about Blue and the fleeting freedom she’d accessed through her and remembered how to be a perfect little doll, just like they wanted.

There was no escape for Heather. No escape from routine, no escape from white walls and beans and rice and macaroni and pills, all the goddamn fucking pills. No escape in her own head for her true self to run free and unbridled in grassy prairies of her own mental creation. *Freedom.*

And in this inner battle, as Real Heather screamed and banged against the cage of her own creation, Abby moved to the Halfway Wing, and then Abby left the Hazel Green Home for Those Unwell Upstairs. She got freedom and Heather, in her haze, never got to say goodbye.

And just as Real Heather was starting to calm down, her rebellion and discontent and obsession with freedom and Blue to be tamed out of her by Robot Heather, she finally realised that Abby was gone. The last person left here that she trusted, and all of Robot Heather’s progress on turning Real Heather back into a soft, pliable doll was completely lost.

Heather began to wonder if she really was insane, with the two Heathers screaming at the highest possible volume in her mind. Real Heather screamed that it was brainwashing taking effect, and that’s why she thought she was insane. Real Heather said that it was what Annabelle and everyone else who had killed Blue wanted her to think. Real Heather said if she believed she was insane, then they had won, and they could do anything they wanted to her, with the excuse that she was insane. They had used that excuse to kill Blue.

Robot Heather said that Real Heather was being irrational and needed to breathe, Real Heather needed to calm down. Nobody was going to hurt her, she was going to be okay.

Real Heather screamed back that Robot Heather was avoiding truly answering the question, and so it continued.

A third Heather, simply what was left of Heather that belonged to neither Robot or Real Heather, called herself simply Heather. Robot and Real Heather were almost each half of her, but not quite. A few split ends belonging to neither side belonged to just Heather, Heather who was scared of the war raging on and on and on in her head. Heather was scared of Real Heather and Robot Heather.

Real Heather was feral and fed on just anger and rage and loneliness, Robot Heather felt nothing, Robot Heather was a blank slate who was programmed to do as she was told and so she did.

And Heather was afraid. She was afraid of forgetting herself and of both Heathers never ceasing battle, Real Heather screaming to be free and Robot Heather emotionlessly keeping her locked up tight. And what scared her equally is that during all this, Heather on the outside kept taking her pills, kept performing tasks silently and emotionlessly, because Robot Heather had control and Robot Heather didn’t feel anything. Robot Heather was safe but cold, so cold.

Heather realised, sitting with the few scraps of herself that hadn’t chosen a side, that she had been fighting her inner battle much, much longer than she’d known Blue, and at least half of the length she had known Abby for. This realisation fuled both of the Heathers.

Robot Heather was ever more determined to keep control, to keep Real Heather locked up tight so that she didn’t ruin everything. And Real Heather used it as even more reason why she should be released, why Robot heather should go away and she should finally get control, because Robot heather had had it for so long and look at what that had accomplished. Absolutely, positively nothing.

And Heather had simply kept moving on, kept taking those stupid, stupid pills! And nothing had happened! Nothing had changed! Blue was dead, she was fucking dead and heaher couldn’t or wouldn’t do anything about it because of stupid, stupid Robot Heather.

And Heather, alone in a dark corner, just wanted to scream.

For how long this went on after that, Heather didn’t know. Probably at least a year or two, maybe more. It all just became a blur, and the Heathers were indescribable from each other. 

And then one day, finally, Real Heather calmed enough to be set free. Real Heather could look around, finally, be aware of what she was doing, know what the hell was going on. Real Heather registered now, that she was taking her pills, eating her food, going to Healing time and not being healed, napping, eating, taking more pills. Real Heather finally now knew what’s was happening with herself, and Robot heather quietly faded into the background, silent but ready should something else happen and she need to again take the reigns.

Heather wasnt areal Heather or Robot Heather, Fake Heather, Old Heather or New Heather or just Heather. Heather was now Heather, fully and completely.

Now that she was finally Heather, she took in everything around her. She hadn’t even realised it, but she’d been moved to a different room. Still a private room, but totally different. It still didn’t have a window, but the bed was on the opposite side of the wall that her bed had been before.

Not only that, but Sarah had been replaced with Gemma. Gemma was an older lady with pink hair and a great wide smile. When she asked Gemma what year it was, Gemma told her that it was 1999, and Heather for a few days decided that Gemma wasn’t real, and the interaction hadn’t been real, either.

She allowed haze and doubt to cloud the memory, because no way was it 1999. Had she been locked in battle that long? Hadn’t it been 1992 or 1993 when she met Blue?

Had Blue been dead that long?

Robot Heather threatened to take over if Real Heather didn’t get it together, so Heather accepted it. She had been at war with herself for about six or seven years, and Blue had been dead that long. That was it, the end. Accept it and move on.

Now that she’d accepted that, she again began registering new things. Gemma wasn’t the only new nurse. The only one she remembered who wasn’t new was Mindy. Now, her morning and evening pills were brought to her by Britney, then her breakfast was brought to her by Jeanette,and Gemma took her to Healing Time and then back, Jeanette brought her her lunch salad, Mindy gave her that stupid green pill but sometimes Harriett, Gemma took her to the dinner that Valerie made, which was now soft tacos with lettuce, pinto beans, tomato, and onion, with soup on the side. Then Britney brought her her pills and she went to sleep.

Britney was a beach blonde, thin and sunburnt, and constantly talking about her boyfriend Tom. Heather remembered when Sarah had told her about her boyfriend Charles so many years ago, and wondered if he’d ever sucked it up and committed. She wondered if Sarah had a baby boy and girl now.

Jeanette was short, with the prettiest skin Heather had ever seen, deep and dark with cool undertones, shiny and expertly cared for. She had long, smooth braids down her back and perfect white teeth. She was gorgeous and said she had a husband named Andy who used to be a cook here.

Valerie was the skinniest person Heather had ever seen, with limp brown hair and sunken sapphire eyes, and at first she’d thought that Valerie was a patient who’d snuck around the counter to get seconds. Valerie probably didn’t eat any of the food she made.

When 2000 came, for the first time that she remembered, everyone stayed up until midnight in the Healing Time room and ate strawberries and blueberries. Heather realised now, she had been here now a few months over ten years.

Ten years since she’d seen the sun.

She asked Gemma, as she was taking her to bed, when she could go outside and see the sun.

Gemma was quiet for a moment, and then she simply said, “I’ll see what I can do.”

Two days later, Gemma was replaced with Dana. Dana was a brunette bitch who told her that Gemma had quit in protest because the higher ups wouldn’t let Heather or anyone else in her wing go outside.

“I’m sure she’ll be leading picket lines on the driveway in two days time, that skank,” Dana muttered.

And sure enough, a week later Heather was told by one of the girls in the North Wing, which was the only Wing with windows besides the Halfway Wing, that there were protesters outside the hospital. They said that they had signs that said things like ‘The Right To Fresh Air Is a Human Right’ and ‘Stop Needlessly Imprisoning Young Girls.’

And Heather thought about it, and yeah, there were only girls at the Hazel Green Home for Those Unwell Upstairs. And the girl from the North Wing, her name was Psalm and said that it was specifically a mental hospital for girls.

“And according to the protestors, nobody’s been released back home in eight years, and the hospital does nothing to prevent girls in the East Wing from jumping off the roof.”

Heather knew that the girls in the East Wing weren’t jumping off the roof, but she wasn’t about to provoke Robot Heather and allow her to claw her way back into power. So she didn’t tell Psalm the truth.

The protestors were there for five weeks, and then they gave up, and Heather never saw Gemma again. According to Psalm, at the last protest they had been holding signs that said ‘Justice For Gemma And The Girls’ because Gemma had died in a car accident a couple days ago and they were pretty sure someone connected to the higher ups at the hospital had arranged it.

Dana just scoffed and said that it was all a bunch of kahooty.

Heather still wanted to go outside, and the North Wing girls sometimes, very very rarely, got to go outside. So she asked Psalm if she’d sneak her out, next time the north wing girls went outside. Psalm agreed, and one day right before nap time Psalm stole her away and they’d went outside.

The hot sun on Heather’s weak, pale shoulders was the best thing since Blue. The sun in her eyes and the wind whipping around was the most stunning thing, and she could only laugh and run around until her lungs, weak and winded, complained.

Of course, then Dana caught her outside and quickly chaperoned her back to her room and gave her the pill that Jeanette had left for her, but Heather’s body, exhausted from just a tiny bit of physical activity, didn’t even need it to fall asleep.

And then the next morning, she was given a new pill. Red, round, and shiny. And she was told to take it, and then go back to sleep.

She woke up with doctors and nurses all around her, because the pill that was meant to help her brain functioning capacity or whatever had put her in a coma for three weeks.

And just to keep Robot Heather away, Heather buried down her fear and continued taking the pills they’d gave her and continued obeying, because she didn’t want Robot heather to have control anymore. Robot Heather needed to go away and leave her be and the only way to make her go was to stay calm and collected and never never contemplate rebellion, because Robot Heather fed on that. Robot Heather wanted control and the only way for Robot Heather to get what she wanted was for Heather to loose control over herself.

So she obeyed to keep the Robot away, out of fear of missing more time. She couldn’t miss more time.

And yet, the years slipped away so fast, like sand between her fingers. She grew older, grew thinner, and the years slipped like sand. The 2000s came and went and the 10s came along. Heather stopped remembering these years because nothing good or interesting ever happened, so her brain decided to forget all the years she was missing out on. 2016 was when Heather’s memory picked up again. Because that was when, finally, she was allowed outside.

She spent hours each day in the small, fenced in plot of grass, soaking in the sunshine, the rain, the wind, the snow. She smelled the fresh air that wasn’t sickly sterile and wanted to live in it forever. Her skin tanned, her body grew healthier, because every day she ran around outside and danced in the sunlight.

And 2019 was when she woke up.

Because that’s when it hit her. That she was almost fifty years old and had been in the mental hospital for thirty years. She couldn’t do it anymore.

2019 is when she plotted her escape.

During outside time every day, she dug a hole with a pathetic plastic spoon, covering it with leaves before going inside. They didn’t watch anyone while they were outside, it was perfect, but slow.

After weeks, the hole was big and wide enough for her to slip into and then under the fence.

She got up in the middle of the night and snuck to a room that had computers, and after a lesson from a girl that was also in there, Harmony, she figured out how to use Google.

And thus, Heather Duke escaped. She’d crawled out of a hole in the ground, barefoot, wearing only a hospital gown and underwear, and ran. A twenty dollar bill that she’d had since 1989 was in her underwear, she used it to buy a bus ticket to Sherwood, Ohio.

Heather McNamara still lived in the area. Heather needed to see her.

The sky was blue and white, and the greenery was captivating and stunning, and the sun shone bright and warm on the late spring day. 

Heather crushed Robot Heather once and for all and got away, she ran. She spent more time battling it out inside her head in the nineties than it took to escape. It was easy, because Annabelle underestimated how deeply angry Heather Duke was.

Over the course of thirty years the Hazel Green Home for Those Unwell Upstairs had forced her to forget who she was and why she was there.

She was there because a murderer had sent her here, to keep her quiet about the harm she’d done.

Heather Duke was done submitting, done obeying, done taking pills.

So in May 2019, Heather Duke loudly knocked on the door of Heather McNamara.

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr is @nbchristinecanigula, and im sorry


End file.
